South Africa comes to terms with the loss of its most celebrated leader
By J.O’S. | JOHANNESBURG
SHORTLY before midnight on December 5th President Jacob Zuma appeared on state television to deliver the news that South Africans had known they would soon hear. Nelson Mandela, the celebrated anti-apartheid leader and South Africa’s first black president, had died peacefully at his home in Johannesburg, aged 95. Dressed in a black tunic, a sombre Mr Zuma told viewers: “Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father.”
By then a crowd was swelling outside Mr Mandela’s home in Houghton, a pleasant suburb in northern Johannesburg, where he had spent his last months under intensive care. The mood among the pilgrims to Houghton, as in the wider country, was mixed. Candles were lit in mourning but there were also songs in celebration of a remarkable life. Asked on a popular talk-radio show about his feelings, a minister who had served under Mr Mandela during his first and only term as president until 1999, said he was “sad, relieved and elated”. It is a strange mix of emotions but a telling one.
The reasons for sadness are plain. The sense of relief is as natural. Mr Mandela had been critically ill for months. In early June he was admitted to hospital with a serious lung infection and few thought he would survive until his 95th birthday on July 18th. Amazingly he held on. He returned home after almost three months in hospital though he still required round-the-clock care. Subsequent reports that Mr Mandela’s health was stable never came without the qualifier that his condition was also critical. Many feel it is a blessing that he has at last been released from a debilitating illness.
Mr Zuma has ordered all national flags to be lowered to half-mast until Mr Mandela’s funeral. There will be memorial services at several venues to give as many people as possible the chance to attend. Though no details have yet been given, it seems likely that the largest of these will be held at the 95,000 capacity SoccerCity stadium in Soweto, the venue for the 2010 World Cup final at which Mr Mandela made his last public appearance. The tsunami of international tributes to him is an early gauge to the likely scale of the state funeral. A country that had been winding down for the holiday season will instead now play host to a vast global event.
It is a tribute to the skill with which Mr Mandela engineered South Africa’s transition from a divided apartheid state to a full democracy that the country’s political stability is now taken for granted. His death will not alter that perception. But Mr Mandela’s moral standing was such that his passing is likely to spur a national stocktaking.
Like any young democracy, South Africa has its troubles. In the week leading up to his death the news in South Africa was dominated by the furore over a report into the large sum of public money spent on Mr Zuma’s private home. It is just one of several scandals that have dogged Mr Zuma’s presidency. Mr Mandela was not a saint but he set a standard for leadership that others have struggled to follow. His passing is the sort of event that stirs up a sense of regret as well as of loss.
